New York City Hackers is an independent documentary by Stig-Lennart Sorensen released in the year 2000. Most of the filming occurs in in New York at the H2K conference, 2600 meeting and an Off the Hook radio show. There is also a coverage of the original MIT hackers from the TMRC club.

The documentary explores the hacker culture by distinguishing computer hackers from common criminals. In the very beginning the viewer is presented with a segment from Off the Hook radio show where Emmanuel Goldstein, the show’s host, uses Kevin Mitnick as an example of a hacker distinct from people perpetrating destructive denial of service (DoS) attacks against websites. Not everybody with access to tools and resources to pull off a successful DoS attack is a hacker, Emmanuel observes. Cheshire Catalyst describes hacking as a process of hacking away at a keyboard until computer does what you want it to do. He also contrasts true hackers with sensationalized “14 year olds twerps who crack into computers” also described as crackers.

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